THE. W A LOCK T HE s. s. Carmelita, a thin mer- chant vessel painted a withered yellow, was ready to set sail from Brooklyn for the ',Vest Indies on the afternoon of the day before Christmas with a full cargo of automohiles, beer, Frigidaires, and Mason jars, and with, as well, a full booking of a hundred and fifty tourists. On the decks it was cruel- ly cold, in the cabins it was tropical, and in the public rooms the fans had already been turned on to counteract the heating system. Shivering and sweating, donning and doffing cardigans and coats, using bad language, the passengers were out of sorts; the air of festivity in which they had embarked had dwindled and had finally died along with the glow of their lunchtime Martinis, and the whiskey they were drinking without ice or soda, out of thick tooth glasses, seemed only to lower their spirits further. Most of them were tired to begin with after a day of last-minute shopping and last- minute telephone calls, and now they were overwhelmed by well-intentioned baskets of farewell fruit ("Exactly like that bird-brained sister of mine," growled an empurpled man to his wife, "when she knows good and well where we're going the papayas lay around on the ground" ) and high poinsettias (more coals to Newcastle), which crowded them in their cramped and humid quarters. Those quarters' They were a far cry Indeed from the spacious, aIry suites the travel bureaus had de- scribed and, through trickery and optical illusion, had photographed for their bro- chures; they were, in point of fact, airless cubicles in need of paint, not fit for the meanest of the crew. A good many passengers went straight to the purser to complain. There was also the problem of comtTIunication with the Puerto RIcan stewards, who were at once ubiquitous and migratory; if these small, slippery souls with the eyes of fawns and the sable hair of dolls could momentarily be detained, they gestured with polite regret and helplessness, and in rampageous English they disclaimed all responsibility for misplaced bags and denied all know ledge of how to regulate the heat. Cardiac signs appeared on the faces of middle-aged men who were going south to relax; lone librarians and lonesome secretaries who had hoped for shipboard adventure were too short- tempered to reconnoitre the field; chil- dren whined that the Carmelita was not as big as the Queen Mary and that they had nothing to do. And visitors, seeing off their disgruntled fnends, were heard to thank theIr lucky stars that they were only visitors. Mrs. Mark Kimball, on her way to the plantation of friends in Antigua for a convalescence in the sun after a long and depressing illness and an operation, began to realIze as soon as she was on board and was threading her way through a labyrinth of glowering and expostulating malcontents that she had made a mistake in choosing to travel by boat at this popular time of year. Having refused to allow any member of her family to come down with her from Boston-she had feared that a farewell, especially with her husband, might make her weep-she had been seen to the gangplank by Nancy Jamieson, an old school friend, who had shuddered at the sight of the ship, had kissed her warmly and said goodbye, and now was gone. Now, when it was too late, she re- proached herself for having listened to her old-fashioned doctor, stoutly loyal to the august therapeutics of an ocean voyage, instead of to her more travelled and sophisticated family, who had urged her to spend the holidays at home and then go quickly and simply by plane. They had warned her that a cruise was nothing like an AtlantIc crossing, when one might have privacy or company as one chose. There would be 01 ganized- and perpetual-entertainment, they saId; there would be some dreadful romp on Christmas Eve with trick hats S1E/#/Jff 25 and noisemakers and vinous "ong, they groaned to think of the sociable drunks that were bound to be on board. But Mrs. KImball had been afraid neither of her isolation in the midst of merry- makers nor of their infringement upon it; it would be obvious, from her pallor and emaciation, that she was in bad health, and she was sure that no one pleasure-bent would par her court. And the fact was, further, though she was careful to conceal It, that she was glad to be escaping the familial season at home, because, while she loved her husband and her children and her kinsmen dear- ly, she was tired nearly to death, and even their conversation, considerate as it was, was often a tribulation to her She could not face them en masse dur- ing the galas of the holidays; in secret she confessed to herself that If she was obliged to listen to her sons' anecdotðS about life at Groton, she would proh- abl) go quite to pieces. Her nerves were fitful, and there was a chill, like the mortal chill of old age, that lay In the marrow of her bones; she wanted to lie, still and warm and silent, by herself and wait, as a patIent animal waits, for her renascence. She had imagined-and so had Dr. Otis-that on the boat she would sleep, without the help of medicine, dreamlessly and deep into every day, pampered by the motion of the monoto- nous, benevolent waves, her face ten- derly bedewed by spray coming through the porthole, and stirring herself at last to eat a light, delicious breakfa"t brought bv a stewardess of quiet, nurselike de- portment. She had seen herself sunning on deck (how Dr. Otis had praised the sun, growing lyrical when he said it was no wonder Apollo was the god of heal- ing! ), insentient with ease, turning a heavenly color to set off the summery dresses she had bought at Jay's while outside a blizzard rushed against the trees in the Common. She had thought that she would sit long hours in her deck chair, watching the flying fish by day and by night the stars, trying to deter- mine the change from the northern to the southern configuration of the heav- ens. By the time she got to the Mon- tagues' in Antigua, she would be so warmed and freshened that her visit to these charming friends might well prove to be a holiday instead of a rest cure. But neither she nor Dr. Otis had ever been on board the Carmelita. And her faith in the boat died instantly and without a struggle as soon as she was confronted by its utilitarian and down- at-heel appointments. It was far from shipshape Its interior paint, in places,